Our Children's Burden: Studies of Desegregation in Nine American Communities.

Mack, Raymond W., Ed.

This collection of case studies on school desegregation in nine American communities (Kalamazoo, Michigan; Newark, Delaware; Riverside and Los Angeles, California; Savannah, Georgia; River City and Bayon County, Mississippi; Chicago, Illinois; and, Hempstead, New York.) summarizes and interprets the struggles to solve this domestic social problem. Although the chapters are written by different authors, the work itself is a shared product in which the authors participated in planning each other's work and in criticizing each other's manuscripts. The methodology of the research includes both survey data and observational data. General trends in school desegregation are discussed in detail. Some of these are: (1) small towns and medium-sized cities, North and South, are desegregating their schools, at least to a token extent; (2) huge metropolitan areas, North and South, are resegregating their schools; and (3) social organization is a critical variable for understanding the amount of desegregation in a community. (Author/JW)